Much was made about the race to the 2023 Heisman Trophy, whether it be who would win or who was deserving of the prestigious honor. Between wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. of Ohio State and quarterbacks Bo Nix of Oregon, Michael Penix Jr. of Washington and Jayden Daniels of LSU, the running truly came down to the last week of the season.
As it turned out, the winner, Daniels, was the only player to finish in the top three to not play in a conference championship game. A lot of people held that against him, including many voters, but not me. It was the correct call.
The main criticism levied towards Daniels was that his Tigers lost each of their biggest three matchups, which is true. LSU dropped games to Florida State, 45-24, at Ole Miss, 55-49, and at Alabama, 42-28. A common denominator there is that all three were away from home, with the Florida State game taking place at a neutral field in Orlando, but that isn’t the part to focus on.
The fact of the matter is that outside of a blowout at the hands of the Seminoles the day before Labor Day, LSU’s defense gave up a ton of points. They couldn’t stop anybody. So much so that the one stop they almost got this season was preventing the best player in the country in 2023 from winning the Heisman. Luckily for Daniels and the “Bayou Bengals,” that wasn’t the case.
Gary Gaines, Billy Bob Thornton’s character in Friday Night Lights (2004), always told his Permian Panthers to strive to be perfect. If Daniels was anything less than perfect this season, LSU could have fared a lot worse. Coach Brian Kelly and the Tigers were lucky to even go 9-3 with such an abysmal defense.
In the fourth game of the season, LSU defeated Arkansas 34-31 after Daniels led the Tigers on a game-winning field goal drive with the final kick going through with five seconds remaining. The Razorbacks, who finished 4-8, delivered their best offensive performance under offensive coordinator Dan Enos, who was fired midseason after a 7-3 home loss to Mississippi State. LSU’s biggest win of the season came against Missouri in a 49-39 affair, but it was another case where Daniels had to be Superman. Mizzou, who turned out to be very good this year, hung over 500 yards of offense against LSU and only lost because Daniels totaled nearly 400 yards and four touchdowns combined by using his arm and legs. That’s a marquee win.
Then, the losses. The Florida State loss was a bad look, but the other two can absolutely not be blamed on Daniels, even though many tried to. Against Ole Miss, Daniels threw for 414 yards and four touchdowns while adding 101 rushing yards and two scores. Is that loss on the quarterback? Against Alabama, it was a heavyweight duel with one of the top offenses in the game pitted against what might be the hottest team in football with the Crimson Tide. Before exiting the game with an injury, Daniels threw for two scores on 211 yards passing with 163 yards and two scores on the ground. His only mistake was an interception on his penultimate drive, where it became apparent that the Tigers weren’t going to stop Alabama that night. Is that loss on the quarterback?
None of this is to take away from Nix and Penix. The duo were the cream of the crop in what was the best conference in college football this season (so long, Pac-12). It seemed like Nix’s award to lose, which he apparently did after losing to Washington for the second time this season in the Pac-12 Championship. Penix even surpassed Nix with the head-to-head win, finishing second in the voting that was Nix’s for the taking. The pair are great players with immense leadership skills, each leading their teams to New Year’s Six bowls with Penix in the College Football Playoff, but they had nothing on Daniels this year.
College football gets a lot of things wrong – often, more than they get right. But this was no such thing.
